Together
by psycho pixie
Summary: Rated for language and YAOI situations. I'm a dub girl, so I'm sorry if the names are spelled wrong. Summary: An angsty Souske and a suspiciously alive Gauron reflect on the past. There's just not enough slash for Full Metal!


AN: I wasn't originally going to post anymore slash, since a majority of my reviews last time were homophobic.  SO.  I'll say RIGHT NOW that this is yaoi, and if you don't like it, don't READ it.  Don't correct me.  Don't flame me.  If you can't say something NICE, please don't say anything at all.

If I had a nickel for every person I shot on a whim, out of boredom, or to simply empty a clip, I'd be richer than I already am. But I don't get nickels for community service.

I get briefcases of cash, or death threats. Depends on my day, and both cheer me up.

Yes, I get cheap thrills out of watching people squirm, and occasionally beg for their lives before I kill them. Some people collect baseball cards. I kill people creatively.

Some things are more fun than others. One of life's guilty pleasures is watching fear consume perfectly logical people. Another is watching some more frivolous emotion consume them.

He's always fun to watch. When he was younger, he was a normal little kid.

But as he grew up...

As I watched him grow up.

His emotions stopped flashing across his face like a film reel - I actually suspect he tried to stop feeling. People do that, when their lives are ugly. Well... some people do. My life is fugly, but I think it's the most amusing thing ever.

Silver lining, and all.

But that boy.

He's something I can always predict. I'm the variable in the equation. It keeps him on his toes. (Fuck... it keeps _me_ on my toes.)

Although. I was always pretty on top of my game, until him. Until my game included him, and I quit thinking rationally. I like to screw with him a little.

And sometimes, when I can get away with it, I like to screw him a lot.

People never see it coming, from him. He's always been the stiff, one-minded, driven military brat. Never one to disobey orders - and orders don't allow you to consort with the enemy.

I didn't start rambling so I could brag about my many numerous villainies.

There's not enough time anyways. I started talking about him, because I don't do it a lot, and my therapist says I have denial issues.

Along with delusions of grandeur, such as taking over the world (or Japan), and creating my own clothing line.

I don't actually know or care why I've started talking about Kashyyn all of a sudden. I do have a newfound respect for the kid; he did almost kill me three or four times, not counting that bullet to the head. I don't count that, because we were nothing to each other back then. He was young and impressionable and taking orders from Kalenin (who, ironically, was the reason I had that titanium plate in my head to start with), and it was an empty killing. Only, I didn't die.

I think Kalenin knew it wouldn't kill me. I think he knew all along what was going on, when Kashyyn started mysteriously presenting information on terrorist cells that, by all rights, he should have no access to.

I didn't go to Kashyyn with the underlying intent of starting what we started. I went to him because he was a weak link, and I knew that one way or another, I would get Intel on Mithril - whether he meant to give it up or not. He was too young to know what would and wouldn't be important to me. That was why I chose him. I also chose him because he knew me far too well to be able to resist my offer. He walked up to me knowing I was possibly entertaining the idea of killing everyone within a hundred feet of me, just to burn a few bullets. He knew I was capable of it.

That was the reason he originally refused me - because I'm dangerous and unpredictable and untrustworthy and dastardly and all sorts of other sweet nothings. He said he couldn't trust me. But all the reasons he had to walk away? In the end, they're why he didn't. So he agreed.

On top of that, I'm just so _charming_.

I didn't expect that he would start to turn into someone else. I'd had every intent of toying with him; giving him little tidbits of information that ended up destroying former allies of mine, making Mithril feel generally unbeatable while I gathered information on their activities, through Kashyyn. Learning valuable information that furthered my personal agenda, which I've always had and which always comes first.

But I learned things about him, no matter how aloof I tried to be about the entire correspondence. I learned that he had typical teenage insecurities, which I warped to my own needs. I learned that he was generally a loner in Mithril, which I used to my advantage. Against his better judgment, he trusted me to some lesser or greater degree.

Why, you may wonder? Because I treated him like he was important to me. I made him feel necessary amid an entire organization that made him feel expendable. Did I manipulate him a little for personal gain?

I most certainly did _not_.

I manipulated him a _lot_ for personal gain.

He was always fun to watch, that one. Even though he kept a good poker face, you could see his every thought pass through his eyes, every feeling.

They were always his weakness.

I never really meant to take any of it to a more intimate level. Sure, it's been done, but it's not the brightest thing in the world, to have someone that close.

But standing there and watching it flash in his eyes, the idea of _what if he... _

It was just too easy. And I was too okay with it. I probably should have showed some restraint, because he wasn't more than seventeen at the time, but really. I break laws by simply being alive, I don't know why I felt a pinch of guilt at grabbing him so young.

But I did, and I'd do it again, so oh well. That's what matters.

He grew out of the naïve, idealistic boy who I sought out in the first place. He grew into a rational, calculating man right in front of me. Yes, openly admitting that it was slightly disorienting. It gave me some kind of soft spot for him. But that flash. _What if he..._

I've never let people entertain questions for too long. What's he after, what's his price, will he kill me. I'd never seen someone look at me with that idea drifting through their head before.

I was strangely comfortable with it. I was perfectly okay with a last-minute change of...

Not that I hadn't entertained the idea, mind you. His attitude towards me had been changing slowly for the past several weeks, and it wasn't very hard to figure out that his feelings towards me were confused. So of course I entertained the idea. Kind of had to.

Plus, it would be stupid of me to say he wasn't (isn't) a good-looking kid. I'm not picky when it comes to that; male, female, you get the same thing out of them one way or another.

Although. Christ, no one told me I was going to have to walk him through _every fucking step_ of physical and psychological involvement. He was the shyest lover I'd ever met, but he was also the fastest learner.

Humm. The good old days.

Maybe I didn't understand what I was getting into. Kashyyn is a lot to bite off all at once, after all. He's like a fucking virus, he gets into your blood... and that's the end of that.

I did make him what he is now. When I called him mine, I meant it. Because he is my Kashyyn. No one has called him that since me, no one but me. Everything he is, everything he's going to be.

_Mine_.

**Souske**

He didn't use that word in the beginning. _His_. But after awhile, after I wasn't so afraid of what was happening. I became _his_ Kashyyn.

He said it one night, when I was on shore leave for the weekend and told my superiors I was going to visit an old comrade from Helmajistan. I think that was when Kalenin realized that I wasn't being quite as honest as I could be, really. But that was when he said it the first time.

He was lying beside me, fingers exploring the scars that crisscrossed my body, smirking at me with that possessive smirk that he always had around me. I was saying something irrelevant, maybe about my next mission. He snorted when I mentioned that I would be in Columbia for a week, at the very least.

"Taking out another drug cartel?" he asked dryly. "A waste of Mithril's time and energy. Cut the head off, and it will only grow another one. Go after someone of interest, like the United States or something."

I blinked, but I was used to his brand of humor by then - or, I was used to what I dismissed as humor. "You think we should let this cartel take control of the country."

"Columbia _is_ a cartel," he said dryly. "It's _boring_. Same old story: lots of cocaine, lots of broke people, four filthy rich people. It's always going to be like that. Be original: invade Jordan. Take out their king or something. But don't bother with a losing battle." I started to argue, but he cut me off. "Yes, _losing_ battle. Because in the end, you'll lose."

I stared at the ceiling. "We're not truly doing anything good if we simply let evil thrive."

"You live on the moral high ground, don't you?" he muttered. "Good and evil, nothing in between. No gray area?"

I lowered my eyes and shrugged a little. "I don't... I suppose there _are_ gray areas."

His smirk deepened. "You're _in_ a gray area, Kashyyn. I'm the black, you're the white."

I let that sink in, and set my jaw stubbornly. "It never occurred to you that maybe _you're_ the gray."

I couldn't have possibly known, then. I couldn't have seen how utterly naïve those words were. And I couldn't have understood the cruel twist to his smirk. I do now.

"You don't understand that we're at war, do you?" he asked, one long finger running along an old knife wound in my side. "_You're_ at war. _I'm_ at war. We don't fight for the same people, but we do fight the same enemies. We're at war with everyone, we're at war with the world, we're at war with each other. It doesn't matter who's gray and who's white and who's evil, Kashyyn. Not out there, and definitely not in here."

I folded my arms across my chest stubbornly. The nickname made me a little uncomfortable - I wasn't used to the name Kashyyn being attached to me. Not by anyone, especially not him. "So be it, then."

"Guess that means you're still going to Columbia."

"I'm still going to Columbia."

"You're missing out."

"People will notice if I don't go."

"People don't notice when you're not there now?" A twist of sarcasm.

"I have an excuse now."

"Tell them your mother died."

"My mother _is_ dead."

"I remember. But who else does?"

"Kalenin."

A snort, now. "That old coot. Just because he was there when she died."

"We all were." I couldn't keep the ice out of my voice. "Another subject, if you would."

"Don't go to Columbia."

I glanced at him, but his face was the essence of boredom. "Is something happening in Columbia?"

"Something's always happening in Columbia."

"Is something _bigger_ happening in Columbia?" I pressed.

A shrug. "I don't know, Mithril, you tell me."

"If something is happening, I should know about it."

"How about you just take my word for it and ask for a reassignment."

"I can't do that."

"You can if it's my word you're taking."

My eyes narrowed. "You want me to tell Kalenin that my source says to stay out of Columbia."

"I want you to take my word for it, idiot, not talk it up to every person you see on the street," he said, and now he sounded irritated. "Kalenin included. If you're worried about anyone putting two and two together with you, it's him. Maybe you should take your information somewhere else."

I sucked on my teeth. "I can't do that."

Another smirk. "I know. You're too idealistic. And stupid."

Silence hung for a moment. "I'm not putting a band-aid on every cut and bruise you get in Columbia," he said finally.

"I wasn't going to ask."

His palm rested over an old bullet hole in my chest. "I doubt Columbia could do anything to you they haven't already done," he decided with a chuckle. "Kashyyn. My Kashyyn."

My head whipped around to look at him, eyes wide with surprise. Did he - just - no, I had to have been hearing things.

A week later, I was out of intensive care and no longer on a 24-hour watch after nearly being killed in a midnight raid in Columbia. I would be released the next day. There were notes from everyone I knew on the base, along with a box of band-aids. The sticky note attached said only, _I told you so. Don't use them all at once._

For some reason - for some foolish, weak, utterly incompetent reason, that made me feel better.

But I did learn. Slowly.

I started to suspect that I was his pawn nearly a month later, but not through anything he said or did. He was always too polished for that. Too professional, too smart. He'd never let anything slip.

But I had a feeling. An irrational, suspicious, black feeling creeping through me, telling me that I'd been trusting him far too much. That I was a fool for letting him get SO close.

And then he disappeared.

I was, to say the very least, stunned. But I wasn't surprised.

Six months later, I saw him again. On a plane, after hijacking it and taking its passengers - mostly students - hostage.

I sat in my seat and trembled, a mixture of anger and hatred and betrayal and

horror and the pounding fear that I would lose it. And when he grabbed Kaname, chose her from the group because she was one of the Whispered. I nearly pulled my gun out and shot him myself.

And then my tray went flying, and I was in the aisle trying to gather my things. And he was standing over me, glaring at first for the disturbance, but his eyes widening with recognition. Smirking a little as I glared and felt the first signs of irrationality creeping over me.

Maybe I wasn't the best person to rely on when it came to him. The childish delusions that swamped my brain before had cleared like clouds from the sky, and I grew up. I quit thinking that even evil men could change. But I still wasn't rational when it came to him, even without the...

I had moved on. I truly had. I'd grown up completely, pulled away from any frivolous attachments to people. And Kaname was starting to bring me out of that, make me open up again. She has that way about her.

I knew I'd have to face him as his foe again... I just hadn't thought it would be so soon.

I never thought I would have to face him like that more than once. But then I went back to Helmajistan with orders - direct, explicit orders - to kill him. No one else. Just Gauron.

I learned.

I lost my entire company.

_He_ killed them.

The game changed, between then and now. He was no longer a harmless opponent, a convenience. He was my enemy. The enemy. And I was supposed to kill him - nearly physically impossible, when his military training and experience is compared to mine. Statistically, I didn't stand a chance.

But. He's dead now. I watched his AS explode. I saw him die.

I heard what he said.

I heard all of his little barbs at me, and said nothing. No matter how much I wanted to. Honey. _My_ Kashyyn, he kept saying. Using a nickname that I hadn't heard since he vanished, to work the evils he worked that day.

I still heard it. I heard what he said. I can't forget, whether he meant it, or whether he was trying to leave me with one final thing to carry through life as a question.

Even back then, before... before things turned more personal, I knew it would come to this.

And I don't know what I'm supposed to do, now that it's over.

**Gauron**

I always knew it would come to this between us. I always thought we would

go down together.

We will. It'll be a good end to a fun round.

All or nothing. This time, it was nothing. Next time, winner takes all.


End file.
